How Interaction Design Can Help Fix Healthcare
View more webinars from David Cronin
This is the type of projects that I would like to work on. Does anyone know of any other companies that are doing this?
Geri
This blog is for the HCI 596 course being taught at Iowa State University through it's Human-Computer Interaction program.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
HCI 596: 2011
The first class session of HCI 596 for Summer 2011 starts tonight, and I have added all of the new authors (who responded to my survey with an e-mail address I could use to add them--there are still 8 more authors to come). The class this semester has an enrollment of 21 students, which is 2.3 (repeating) times more than the Summer 2009 (9 students). There will, hopefully, be a high frequency of excellent blog posts this summer about various topics related to HCI/User Experience.
I'm looking forward to reading the posts.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Collection of Posts by David Kabala
Input
Input for VR systems has primarily been concerned with tracking the position and orientation of users. This information is required for immersive stereoscopic display when calculating the correct viewpoint for each eye. 6-degrees of freedom (6-DOF), 3D position and orientation, data are necessary for this calculation. There are three main types of devices that have been produced for 6-DOF tracking; magnetic, sonic, and image based. The following table is a comparison of the cost of these systems. Recently there has been research into using low cost cameras and visual fidutials in a fully enclosed cave for tracking (Reference VF paper). This technique has been shown to be accurate, with moderate latency. Using visual fidutials is currently limited by the requirement to be used in fully enclosed cave environments, and additional processing on the image data from the camera.
Other than tracking devices, VR environments use common computer interaction devices, the keyboard and mouse being the most prevalent. Touch screen devices, gamepads, 3-degree of freedom trackers (Wiimote, PS3 controller), microphone (audio processing). There are additional interfaces including haptics, smell, taste, and even neural interfaces.
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HCI of RTSs and console vs pc interfaces(Mouse)
Real time strategy(RTSs) games have historically been confined to PCs. The main reason appears to be that the use of a mouse and keyboard for control are superior to the controls provided by console video game platforms. Notable attempts to bring RTSs to consoles are the Nitendo 64(N64) version of Starcraft and the more recent Halo Wars. Halo Wars has been more successful, as it was designed from the ground up to use a control pad whereas the N64 Starcraft was simply a port of the PC game.
So what is it about a mouse and keyboard that is superior to gamepads for RTSs? I argue that there are two principle ways that separate advantages of the mouse and keyboard. I will break up the discussion of these in to two blogs. First the Mouse:
1. RTSs require very accurate and precise selection of items on screen.
A mouse is better suited for this than a joystick(s) on a gamepad. RTSs require the quick selection/deselection of friendly and enemy units, they also require accurate control of selecting small units within larger groups and accurate placement of commands for selected units. A joystick is limited to, usually, 128(8 bits) of precision on each axis. However modern mice have a much larger range of placement, and greater control over the speed of movement. In the future other interfaces may prove better at this currently then mice touch devices may be very good at this as it allows for direct connection of selection and the display itself.
---
HCI of RTSs and console vs pc interfaces(Keyboard)
Now for the Keyboard.
2. RTSs require a wide range of commands to be quickly executable. US traditional keyboards have at least 101 keys, in contrast to gamepads that have ~16 buttons max. When using a mouse an keyboard at the same time, as is done for RTSs, only one hand is covering the keyboard while the other is covering the mouse. This means that the whole keyboard cannot be covered at once, only ~30 keys are covered at one time. This can also be added to the 2-3 buttons on the mouse. However the hand covering the keyboard can be moved to cover different portions of the keyboard depending on the situation, so all of the keys can be readily available. Given the number of possible unit commands, magic commands, building commands, selection commands, and camera placement commands the ~16 max buttons of most gamepads are inadequate.
---
The software available for developing VR applications can be divided into two categories: code development libraries and end-user applications. The development libraries: Cavelibs, vrjuggler, OpenSceneGraph, OpenSG, and vrTools are targeted to application programmers. The End-user applications: Quest3D, Unigine, Alice, Agent Sheets, and Vizard are targeted for application designers.
end-user applications
Alice
3D programming environment
Focuses on teaching programming
Agent sheets
Create games and computational science applications with music, speech, and visualizations
License restrictions
No VR support
Unigine
Primarily a development library
Unigine viewer allows modification of scene
Licensing restrictions
Quest3D
development tool for creating real-time 3D applications
Licensing restrictions
Expensive
Windows-only
---
Software Licenses
When considering the accessibility of software and libraries it's important to understand how it is affected by the licensing. Bruce Perens describes four main categories of software licenses: proprietary, “gift”, “sharing with rules”, and “in-between” licenses[Parens]. Proprietary software is licensed such that it may not be modified or used in another package, doing so would be copyright infringement. The Open-source “gift” licenses like the Apache license[Apache] allow modification and use of the software in any derivative work including proprietary software. Open-source “sharing with rules” licenses allow modification and use of software as long as the derivative work is also shared. The General Public License version 3(GPL3)[GPL3] is an example of an open-source “sharing with rules” license. Open-source “in-between” licenses like the Lesser General Public License version 3(LGPL3)[LGPL] allow modification and use of the software in derivative work, including proprietary software, with the condition that the original software code be made available with the derivative work.
There may be software that provides the functionality needed in a new application, but because of licensing, that software may not be legally usable. This makes the general use of proprietary software and systems inaccessible to many. But under open-source licenses, there is legally solid ground for users to use, modify, and share derivative work
---
Expertise
The complexity of utilizing the hardware and software necessary for a VR system still requires specialized knowledge. The development of an application’s software has the most effect on accessibility as compared to hardware. This is because there are many different VR hardware arrangements ranging from very complex to support, 6-sided cave, to relatively simple to support, a single computer with attached HMD. However, developing a VR application with VR software is complex for the range of computer and HMD to 6-sided cave hardware arrangements. To utilize the available software requires software engineering, graphics, and VR domain knowledge. Because of this, most VR projects have an additional cost to pay for personnel that have this specialized knowledge.
Input for VR systems has primarily been concerned with tracking the position and orientation of users. This information is required for immersive stereoscopic display when calculating the correct viewpoint for each eye. 6-degrees of freedom (6-DOF), 3D position and orientation, data are necessary for this calculation. There are three main types of devices that have been produced for 6-DOF tracking; magnetic, sonic, and image based. The following table is a comparison of the cost of these systems. Recently there has been research into using low cost cameras and visual fidutials in a fully enclosed cave for tracking (Reference VF paper). This technique has been shown to be accurate, with moderate latency. Using visual fidutials is currently limited by the requirement to be used in fully enclosed cave environments, and additional processing on the image data from the camera.
Other than tracking devices, VR environments use common computer interaction devices, the keyboard and mouse being the most prevalent. Touch screen devices, gamepads, 3-degree of freedom trackers (Wiimote, PS3 controller), microphone (audio processing). There are additional interfaces including haptics, smell, taste, and even neural interfaces.
---
HCI of RTSs and console vs pc interfaces(Mouse)
Real time strategy(RTSs) games have historically been confined to PCs. The main reason appears to be that the use of a mouse and keyboard for control are superior to the controls provided by console video game platforms. Notable attempts to bring RTSs to consoles are the Nitendo 64(N64) version of Starcraft and the more recent Halo Wars. Halo Wars has been more successful, as it was designed from the ground up to use a control pad whereas the N64 Starcraft was simply a port of the PC game.
So what is it about a mouse and keyboard that is superior to gamepads for RTSs? I argue that there are two principle ways that separate advantages of the mouse and keyboard. I will break up the discussion of these in to two blogs. First the Mouse:
1. RTSs require very accurate and precise selection of items on screen.
A mouse is better suited for this than a joystick(s) on a gamepad. RTSs require the quick selection/deselection of friendly and enemy units, they also require accurate control of selecting small units within larger groups and accurate placement of commands for selected units. A joystick is limited to, usually, 128(8 bits) of precision on each axis. However modern mice have a much larger range of placement, and greater control over the speed of movement. In the future other interfaces may prove better at this currently then mice touch devices may be very good at this as it allows for direct connection of selection and the display itself.
---
HCI of RTSs and console vs pc interfaces(Keyboard)
Now for the Keyboard.
2. RTSs require a wide range of commands to be quickly executable. US traditional keyboards have at least 101 keys, in contrast to gamepads that have ~16 buttons max. When using a mouse an keyboard at the same time, as is done for RTSs, only one hand is covering the keyboard while the other is covering the mouse. This means that the whole keyboard cannot be covered at once, only ~30 keys are covered at one time. This can also be added to the 2-3 buttons on the mouse. However the hand covering the keyboard can be moved to cover different portions of the keyboard depending on the situation, so all of the keys can be readily available. Given the number of possible unit commands, magic commands, building commands, selection commands, and camera placement commands the ~16 max buttons of most gamepads are inadequate.
---
The software available for developing VR applications can be divided into two categories: code development libraries and end-user applications. The development libraries: Cavelibs, vrjuggler, OpenSceneGraph, OpenSG, and vrTools are targeted to application programmers. The End-user applications: Quest3D, Unigine, Alice, Agent Sheets, and Vizard are targeted for application designers.
end-user applications
Alice
3D programming environment
Focuses on teaching programming
Agent sheets
Create games and computational science applications with music, speech, and visualizations
License restrictions
No VR support
Unigine
Primarily a development library
Unigine viewer allows modification of scene
Licensing restrictions
Quest3D
development tool for creating real-time 3D applications
Licensing restrictions
Expensive
Windows-only
---
Software Licenses
When considering the accessibility of software and libraries it's important to understand how it is affected by the licensing. Bruce Perens describes four main categories of software licenses: proprietary, “gift”, “sharing with rules”, and “in-between” licenses[Parens]. Proprietary software is licensed such that it may not be modified or used in another package, doing so would be copyright infringement. The Open-source “gift” licenses like the Apache license[Apache] allow modification and use of the software in any derivative work including proprietary software. Open-source “sharing with rules” licenses allow modification and use of software as long as the derivative work is also shared. The General Public License version 3(GPL3)[GPL3] is an example of an open-source “sharing with rules” license. Open-source “in-between” licenses like the Lesser General Public License version 3(LGPL3)[LGPL] allow modification and use of the software in derivative work, including proprietary software, with the condition that the original software code be made available with the derivative work.
There may be software that provides the functionality needed in a new application, but because of licensing, that software may not be legally usable. This makes the general use of proprietary software and systems inaccessible to many. But under open-source licenses, there is legally solid ground for users to use, modify, and share derivative work
---
Expertise
The complexity of utilizing the hardware and software necessary for a VR system still requires specialized knowledge. The development of an application’s software has the most effect on accessibility as compared to hardware. This is because there are many different VR hardware arrangements ranging from very complex to support, 6-sided cave, to relatively simple to support, a single computer with attached HMD. However, developing a VR application with VR software is complex for the range of computer and HMD to 6-sided cave hardware arrangements. To utilize the available software requires software engineering, graphics, and VR domain knowledge. Because of this, most VR projects have an additional cost to pay for personnel that have this specialized knowledge.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Computer Vision
Computer Vision is an excellent complement to existing methods in Human Computer Interaction. Computer Vision methods allows us to analyze and recognize human movements and behavior through digital images and video. Most computers still receive input from legacy low bandwidth input devices such as keyboards and mouse. This type of interface forces a user to adapt to a computer in an unnatural way. Stereo vision, voice recognition, face recognition, emotions recognition, and motion tracking are just a few techniques used for tracking how people to interact with their surroundings in a natural way. These techniques supply us with promising human-computer interaction methods by analyzing and recognizing human movements. The process of detection and tracking human body parts is one of the main steps necessary to reach a robust and natural interaction or interface model. There are already some practical applications using this model in HCI. Perceptional interface has recently emerged to motivate an increasingly large amount of research within the computer vision community. The focus of this effort is to provide highly interactive, multimodal interfaces that enable rich, natural and efficient interaction with computers. A multimodal interface is a system that combines two or more input modalities in a coordinated manner. Perceptional interfaces are inherently multi-modal. Humans interact with world by way of information being sent and received, primary through the five major senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. A modality refers to a particular sense. The topic of perceptional interfaces is very broad and in recent years several workshops and conferences have begun to focus on how computer vision and advances in other areas such as speech and sound recognition can increase research opportunities.
Some Computer Vision Links:
Human-computer interaction through computer vision
Extending human-computer interaction by using computer vision and colour recognition
Emerging Topics in Computer Vision
Some Computer Vision Links:
Human-computer interaction through computer vision
Extending human-computer interaction by using computer vision and colour recognition
Emerging Topics in Computer Vision
3D Tangible User Interfaces
A tangible user interface (TUI) is a user interface in which a person interacts with digital information through the physical environment. TUIs offer a natural means of interaction with computers and are already been shown to simplify existing computerized applications and offer solutions for tasks that were considered to be “out of the scope” of human computer interaction. People have natural tangible abilities that allow them to manipulate physical objects with very little cognitive effort. Current HCI (Human Computer Interfaces) use very little of our abilities and do not provide much opportunity to manipulate physical objects. The Window-Icon-Menu-Pointer (WIMP) interaction metaphor is the predominant standard for the current HCIs. This interface blocks our innate natural abilities. Creating HCI as 3D virtual worlds can dramatically change the way we perform CAD or construction oriented tasks and open the door for other applications that are not currently supported by computers. Manipulating objects in a 3D space such as a virtual world can provide interactions through a transparent interface that is inline with our physical qualities. TUIs are also a great tool for assisting children in learning, because of its ability to take advantage of their natural ability manipulate objects. Children have played with physical objects to learn a variety of skill, a tangible interface therefore would appear as a “natural” form to them.
Some Tangible User Interfaces Links:
3D Computer Interaction Using Physical Objects: Exploration of Tangible User Interfaces
Tangible User Interface for Children An Overview
A Tangible User Interface as Interaction and Presentation Device to a Social Learning Software
Some Tangible User Interfaces Links:
3D Computer Interaction Using Physical Objects: Exploration of Tangible User Interfaces
Tangible User Interface for Children An Overview
A Tangible User Interface as Interaction and Presentation Device to a Social Learning Software
Robotics (Human Robot Interaction)
Human-robot interaction is the study of interactions between humans and robots. It is often referred as HRI by researchers. Traditional graphical user interfaces and input devices (keyboards and mouse) are commonly used in the field of HRI to control robots. These traditional user interfaces are currently the standard, but do not offer an ideal mapping to various robotic tasks. They do not take advantage of the innate skills of physical object manipulation and spatial perception. Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) is a physical metaphor that could be used to manage the interaction between robots and physical objects. Past research has focused on how to improve the robot development. The operation of robots in different spatial situations and environments has been often overlooked. The 2D user interface (UI) limits a human robot operator’s spatial perception when interacting with three dimensional objects. Low level robot control tasks can really benefit TUIs. TUIs couple digital information and function with physical objects allowing a virtual entity in digital realm to be manipulated through a physical medium. TUIs provide spatial orientation and the position of a physical object in relation to its surroundings can expose additional information and provide interaction insight and task awareness to the human robot operator.
Some Human Robot Interaction Links:
Utilizing Physical Objects and Metaphors for Human Robot Interaction
Human-Robot Interaction for Cooperative Manipulation: Handing Objects to One Another
Some Human Robot Interaction Links:
Utilizing Physical Objects and Metaphors for Human Robot Interaction
Human-Robot Interaction for Cooperative Manipulation: Handing Objects to One Another
Surface Computing and Multi-Touch Interfaces
There is a strong focus on multi-touch interaction in HCI. Experimental multi-touch interfaces have been around since 1982. The first multi-touch display was based on finger pressure technology. A multi-touch table uses a very simple method for tracking the finger/object touches/movement on a surface screen. It takes advantage of a cameras ability to see a greater spectrum of light then the human eye, extending into the infrared spectrum. There are 4 major multi-touch surface interface solutions: Microsoft Surface, Perspective Pixel, TouchLib, and TBeta. These solutions implement a design that can host complex high performance applications. The solutions provide control of multi-screen projection and control of audio and visual events. Microsoft Surface uses a design that is based on a standard IKEA table and has a projector light diffuser in the center of the table. One of the most famous solutions is Perspective Pixel designed by Jeff Han. Jeff Han is arguably one of the major pioneers of multi-touch surface computing, because of his ability to promote multi-touch surface computing. The solution uses the total internal reflection method (FTIR). The two major open source alternative solutions are TouchLib and TBeta. These solutions can track finger touches and translate the input into standard HID (Human Interface Device) events.
Some Surface Computing and Multi-Touch Interface Links:
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